Postpartum | Parents discuss first weeks with a newborn and toddler

How are we coping with our second baby? This is the one where Emma and Elliot share some updates on how things are going two weeks into having a new baby and how our 3 year old is managing the transition. Full of funny stories, parenting fails, and general ramblings interrupted now and then by a crying newborn! Topics include: birth overview, becoming a big sister, sleep, Emma's recovery, things that are going well and things that aren't! Along with updates on our relationship, actual achievements, and more. 

We refer back to these previous episodes, as we discuss how things have changed or are different from what we expected or prepared for:
Newborns | Parents discuss surviving the first week with a baby
Second-Time Parents | Parents discuss preparing to go from one to two

And briefly talk at the end about potty training, past conversation here:
Potty Training for Babies | Parents discuss elimination communication

Watch some of our baby home video for this episode on YouTube:
www.youtube.com/@dontwakethebaby_podcast

Engage with us on Instagram
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Discord Listeners Community 

Looking for something else? Want to know more about us or our faith?
Find everything explained and more links on our website:
www.kairosmovement.org.uk/dontwakethebaby/

Unwind on sleepless nights to a wholesome mix of parenting stories, quirky humour, and cosy crafting. We’re not here to provide answers but to share our experiences, explore how parenting has changed, and build an online community of parents for mutual support.

A fun, honest and unscripted conversation between Emma and Elliot on non-judgemental parenting and millennial-based topics, as we relax on an evening attempting an artistic or creative activity. 

We are a project in partnership with The Kairos Movement and supported by The Methodist Church, of which The Kairos Movement is a part

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 2:45 Parenting Achievement
• 6:50 Main conversation
• 27:00 Emma's Recovery
• 37:54 Comparison to first time
• 49:30 Fail Stories
• 53:10 Our relationship
• 57:33 Wrapping up

Transcript

 So Emma, what are we talking about today? Today we're talking about how we're getting on first week with a toddler and a newborn. 

This episode is called Postpartum. 

Hello, we're back with another episode of Don't Wake the Baby, the show where the name is once again actually accurate. Actually accurate. What's happening? We have a baby! Woohoo! It's happened! Yay! If you listening along in order then a couple of previous episodes I was still heavily pregnant, yeah Hopefully you'll notice I'm not breathing as heavily But now we meet you on the other side and our little one is here with us Recording away laid on me.

So if you can hear little breathing, that is her  So yes, we could hardly call our three and a half year old a baby anymore. So the show name was a baby A little misleading, but it's not just for babies. Uh, we like to chat about anything, you know, the realities of parenting with under fives. And boy, do we have some realities for you.

As mentioned up front this episode, we're chatting all about how we're getting on. We're currently almost at two weeks with our little one. And, uh, we've sat down to record to update you about how things are going. Yeah. So as usual, come and join us, uh, in the baby blankets in the, the cot. Well, I don't know we'd all fit in the cot, but no you get the idea in the blanket fort the baby blanket fort I'm elliot and with me is my host Emma i've not thought this through what normally we say something about ourselves I'm  not prepared  It's it's going downhill already and say i'm emma i'm the one who had a lion this morning Because  I went straight back to sleep and Elliot was very heroic and took over.

That's a good one. I feel like it should be a recurring segment from now on. How many hours of sleep did you get last night?  I think I was about four hours, maybe a bit more. Yeah, and I think overall I probably got five or six. Yeah, yeah. If you find the sound of that you can tell we're actually doing not too bad.

Touch wood.  Like we're actually sounding awake.  Getting some hours together of sleep. I must say, coping with a baby, so much easier when you're actually sleeping. Yeah, so much easier. And don't, don't be fooled, this isn't to say our baby sleeps. No. Our baby's like any baby, you know, it's up every two hours, you know, it's, it's a baby, it doesn't sleep very well, but, We, we know a bit more about what we're doing, so we're coping a bit.

So anyway, we're getting, we're getting, we're getting ahead of ourselves. Parenting 

achievement time! And boy, do we have a dramatic story for you.  So we could, uh, we could put anything in here. We've had quite a lot of veils and stories and things that are, are quite, Funny and amusing, we could have put in this segment, but we'll go with the big one.  We could have put it in dramatic one.

Yeah.  We'll take it out of the narrative later on and talk about it up front here at the beginning.  So things were, we're chugging along nicely. It was, we've Day four. Yeah, so I'm trying to think where we we've been home a few days like two days Yeah, not long at all And then we had a rather hectic going on that we were not we're not ready for not what you wanted on day four Yeah, when you all just trying to recover Lily trapped her  finger in the back of a door Yes.

Um, which at first we're like, oh,  you know. I feel like there's different levels of this. You can, you get your finger just kind of a little bit thing. Yeah, but this got really. This was bad. Yeah. Um, it was like in the hinge side. Yeah. Uh, and yeah, I, I try not to think about it too much because actually it's one of those things we went through the whole birth and I, I was doing, I wasn't squeamish at all really.

And then this really, if I think about it too much.  I feel a bit faint. I was really stressed at the time. If you're a squeamish like me, then, we'll try not to go into too many details, but maybe skip ahead a few seconds. Her finger kind of got a bit crushed. And it was bleeding. She was screaming. She pulled it out.

I was trying to put the door back. You know, so she could get out, but obviously she's a toddler, she can't wait. Yeah. And I was like, oh my god, her nail's gonna come off. Um, anyway. I was worried her finger was gonna come off, to be brutally honest.  Anyway, so we took her to get, like, a little first aid wherever we were.

They put plaster on it, and I was like, oh. And I was thinking, oh, it's bleeding quite a lot still, but we'll see if that, you know. We then brought her home, about two hours later, I thought, I'll have a look at it. And it was gone. She was having a nap. She was having a nap. We've been crying this whole time in pain.

We're given a Calpol and, uh, she's finally fallen asleep. And I had a look at it and I was like, oh no, it's still breathing pretty badly. It looked like a deep wound. I think we need to go to A& E. Elliot, uh, you're gonna have to take her to A& E.  I was like, oh no. Yeah.  But he was very brave for someone who's not good with blood or hospitals.

I'm not good with hospitals, I'm not good with blood. Yeah, I drove Lily in to A& E and we went to minor injuries and we sat around. It was actually pretty good. Yeah. I was really worried it was going to be hours Yeah, I was. You know what A& E can be like. Um, and I thought I, how am I going to? Keep Lily, you know, entertained.

Yeah. But, uh, she was really good and actually, you know, by that point she'd calmed down quite a lot and she found the whole thing quite exciting when they were seeing her. Um, there was a lot of sitting around so she was really good being patient. Um, it was challenging. Um, but yeah, we, we got seen to, she had an x ray.

Just to check. You know, they didn't think it was too bad but they wanted to make sure that like her bones were okay. Um, it wasn't broken. It was all good. It was just quite a nasty cut Um, so they kind of glued it up glued it up and saw the output addressing on it and uh, we got to come home Yeah  So so in the end fine, but at the time very stressful.

I literally stress ate through most of them while I was sat in hospital  So when they came back I was like, oh i'm so glad you're pleased um, there is no chocolate hard left at all now  um  Yeah, it was a stress we didn't really need on Zoom for. After we'd been like, everything's going so well. Yeah, yeah.

So yeah. So there you go. There's something we can tick off our list that we've done, hopefully won't happen again. Yeah. It's true. There we go. And we can tell the story on the podcast for everyone to enjoy. I'll remind her of this years later and be like, we're in a new bond, you know what you decided to do.

And we've got a record of it. It's on. It's recorded on audio now. It's recorded on audio. It's on. It's on. It's on. 

Okay, do those poppers up on that sleep suit, the little baby grow. Get confused and do it up the wrong way and get annoyed, uh, take it off and find the little bronze one and clip it together. And let's dive into some conversation today, chatting about how we're doing, some updates from us. Our second baby.

Uh, why don't we just open with how, you know, generally, how are you, how are you coping, Emma? Or more, more interesting, maybe, how, how you're feeling about it all?  Honestly, it's felt like,  not in a bad way,  sorry Lily, it's been a lot easier than last time, I think. And I don't know if that's because we're calmer human beings, because it's not our firstborn, so we're not paranoid all the time.

Or is it, generally, she sleeps a little bit better, and my birth was a lot better, because it was just an elective C section. There's all sorts of factors at play, isn't there? Like, as much as, We had some people warning us that it can be a lot harder, because with obviously a toddler in the house as well, that presents challenges, and of course it has presented challenges.

But equally, on the other hand, with an elective c section, like, that's been a lot smoother. A lot smoother. And like, from that point of view, things have been a bit easier, and we, we know a bit more about what we're doing, we could dive straight in. We had problems with feeding first time around with Lily.

Yeah. Which added to the complications. So all sorts of different things have meant.  It's kind of, yeah, the transition has not been as jarring. Yes, it's not been as jarring.  terrifying and sleep deprived as I thought. And it's still early days. It is. We've got to clarify this. It could easily go downhill very quickly.

We're almost at the two week point, so we've got a long way to go. Yeah, yeah, yeah.  I think it's good though, you know, not to show off. This isn't an episode to be like, Oh, look how well we're doing. We're doing so great. You know, it is hard. There's definitely things that are really difficult, but it's given me a bit of confidence that,  you know.

That we can do it. We can do it. And we kind of know a bit about what we're doing and sometimes, you know, we're, we're hosting a parenting podcast and as much as, you know, we try to be like, we're normal parents, you do get a bit of imposter syndrome to be like, why, why are we hosting a show? Like, we're not, you know, ideal parents.

We don't know everything in the world. It's, you know, we're just normal people, but. It's good to know that. That we can do an okay job. We can do an okay job and I hope things are hard for you right now if you're listening out there then maybe we can impart some of our wisdom or you know a lot of stuff we've learned from our community actually.

I was gonna say, I think a lot of stuff that's helped the transition is stuff that people told us to do. We prepared in advance and So many of you guys out there who listen kind of sent us tips and things or you know We recorded some episodes didn't we about how we were preparing and so much of that I think helps so much and has paid off.

Thanks so much everyone out there. It all worked really well. The community We have amazing stuff. It's made it so much easier Yeah, we'll return to some of those things later on as they pop up. I was gonna say because there's a few specific things It'd be good to touch on but let's run through some updates.

We won't go into everything because some stuff You We want to save for deep dives on future episodes, so, our birth story, breastfeeding and stuff, we definitely want to do a whole episode on that soon. Where we left off when we were last, on the airwaves? Very end of pregnancy, so at that point, we sent Lily off to stay for a while with your sister, Kirsten, in Barnard Castle.

Did a great job looking after her, and she had a lovely time. Kind of momentous. In and of itself as well. Yeah. Lily was away for almost a week. Yeah, and she's never been away. She stayed overnight before, but to be away that long, we were worried the baby was going to come early. And yeah, I'd had a lot of Braxton Hicks.

So I was a bit paranoid. Like what if this baby decides to come early and just in terms of logistics and childcare. So she went a few days early along with a few days after the birth, she was there for a number of nights.  But she did really well. Did really well. Really well. Really loved it. So impressed with that.

And it's been really nice because, um, her and her cousin Sophie have such a lovely relationship now. Yeah. Um, I think it was really nice for them to have that quality time together. But we did manage to stick to our thing that, um, again was suggested to us by our listeners and we discussed it on, on an episode.

We made it so Lily was the first person to find out the name and the first person to come and visit and see her before we shared all that information. with the wider family. Um, and we successfully did all that. We did! So that was really good. Um, so obviously between that we had the birth.  Oh, well actually I'm, I'm skipping ahead a little bit.

Because we had an actual date fixed. Yes! We were able to do some, some interesting, you know, just some, some notable things we didn't do last time, which was, you know, we had a last, A last occasion for a few things, like this is the last time we will do this before the baby's here. Yes, yeah. So the day before we went out and had, I would say we had a meal out.

I mean, we went to Morrison's Cafe.  For our treat. Ooh, so glamorous. I know. So exotic. So we sat with all the pensioners, um,  but if, if you know, when I was heavily pregnant, I got tired very easily, so I didn't really want to go out for a nice evening meal. I just wanted somewhere easy that we could sit and eat.

As you've probably already guessed, and we've said before, and already been hinted at, like We almost find having a newborn easier than pregnancy, particularly late pregnancy, particularly for you. For me, yeah, definitely. And I know some people do really well with pregnancy, so it's a different scenario.

But for me, it's, it's, even with a c section, it's always been better once the baby's been out. And then the night before, we had a nice little evening sat and we watched the first Harry Potter movie together. We did, yeah. Nice little reminiscing. nostalgic thing to do. You can tell we're very millennials.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Then we went into hospital. Yeah, it was a much nicer experience. Um, you actually had a window and a fan in your room. Window and a fan. I say room, you know, the ward. Whereas last time I did not have a window and my fan was taken from me. Yes, yeah. So it was like luxury. Last time it was a bit of a heat wave.

It was. Really hot. This time it's November. But it was still really hot. Still, the hospital was so hot, so stuffy. I found it really difficult. I'd get terrible headaches. You alright? Yeah.  Someone's slowly waking you up but I think, I think I could get a bad sleep. So when we first came to the ward before the c section, um, you get to put your bags and stuff where you're going to be staying.

And the ward was quite full then so I was like, oh, a full ward. But when we actually came back there was only me for ages. On the ward. So it was like our own personal, like,  room almost. Very different experience. Yeah. Because last time it was heaving. This time, really quiet. We had those, the lovely midwives that stayed with us and accompanied us through the whole C section process in and out of theatre and surgery.

Um, I've written down their names were Jo and Rachel. Oh, well done, you remember their names. Made a note of it at the time. They were really nice though, they were like jokey and friendly. Our big Uh, stress really at this point was, um, for some reason there'd been something that pushed back the availability of the, the theatre.

So, like, our, our scheduled C section was delayed by about three hours. So we were sat around waiting for a while, which was a bit, you know, annoying and stressful. And we were kind of all ready. I was in scrubs and everything, ready to go. And we were just kind of sat there waiting for availability. I was like, as long as it's done today.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Was my main concern. Um, and they kept saying, oh, it's definitely going to happen today. So I was like, okay. But I was glad once they came and were like, right, we're going now. I was like, great. Yeah, yeah. Um, you know, there's all sorts of things where last time it was, uh, you know, late lockdown, it was still during the kind of pandemic period.

It wasn't strict rules, but it does mean a lot of the stuff. I didn't, we didn't know what was normal  outside of the pandemic. I was surprised that I was actually allowed to stay on the ward with you. Yeah, and they were like, he can stay overnight if he wants. Whereas last time they were like, no, these are the visiting hours and they cannot stay with you.

I was literally, after the baby was born a few hours, last time I was sent away. You were sent home, yeah. Partners are not allowed on the ward. Whereas I remember, I asked them and they were like, oh yeah, of course they can stay. I was like, they can stay?  So yeah, we were impressed with that. That was a lot better.

So stuff like that. Um, you're in for 24 hours. Yeah.  was, uh, told to us was the kind of, that was the standard kind of thing, where if nothing's wrong, you'll be allowed to be at home. So the following day then, in the morning, um, I went and picked up Lily and brought her back. Yeah. We had a bit of a challenging car ride back to the hospital.

We've talked a lot. Recently on the podcast about some of the tantrums and meltdowns and stuff and challenges we've been having with Lily over the last month. Yeah. Um, while you've been pregnant. And so that was the last little bit of that, really, that car journey back I struggled with, with Lily. Um, after that, she's been amazing.

Yeah, once the baby's been here and she's met it. Yeah. I, met it, met her. Um, she's been really good. We've like, we still have one bad tantrum a day, but honestly.  before we were having multiple tantrums every day, so it's so much better. Again, it's still early days, maybe it's still all new and exciting to her, and slowly things are going, she's going to act out, but fingers crossed at the moment. 

Yeah, doing really well and we did it. We played it really well. I think we did. We followed a lot of the advice  So I brought her into the hospital and you were waiting for her to greet her in your ward Yeah I was stood at the top of the ward waiting for us so I could because I thought it's a big scary place a hospital So I want to see me straight away.

So I was on it like make sure that you know, you weren't holding the baby Yeah, so, you know again, it's kind of a jealousy possession thing. We've been trying really really hard  To pre  emptively make her feel that, you know, the baby hasn't replaced you. Yes, and you're still very  Oh, shhh.  You're okay.  I'm afraid this will be a common theme going forward with the podcast.

You may get little, little baby cries every now and again. Yeah, it's okay.  I must say I was slightly worried. On the way car journey back, I told Lily the name of her sister. She did not like it at all. And she was saying, no, Baby's going to be called Lily 2. I was like, great. So I messaged you saying like, just be warned.

She may completely reject the baby's name. We've not actually mentioned yet, but, uh, Lily's sister is called Lola. But nope, she's taken to it really well, actually on meeting her. She accepted it. I was going to say, once, once she got to the hospital and I was like, this is Lola. And then she gave me an old book and then she just kind of was like, okay.

And I went, it's the same letter as your name. And she really liked that actually. So it turned to be a.  So yeah, so Lola Crippen, Lily and Lola. Lola was born on Wednesday the 6th of November. She was 8 pounds 11 ounces. So slightly bigger than Lily. Yep. But not by a ton really. I don't really want to mention this but I feel like, you know, it's part of the story but I wish I could erase it.

The only kind of Not negative, but slight dampener on it, is that you may recognise from the date, um, this date was the day that Donald Trump got elected  as president in  the US, the election results were coming out that morning, so we'd had a lovely time watching Harry Potter, and then kind of that day waiting, you know.

Kind of all that news was going around and it was a bit of a like, Oh, I really, I don't need this right now. It's a bit of a shame. It helped me in a way in that I didn't care about John Donald Trump. Oh, you had a big distraction. Yeah. I was like, who cares? Which I know it's easy to do when you're not in America.

I will say that. Yeah. Yeah. Cause obviously it affects other countries, but it's not the same as living in a country. And also a bit of a juxtaposition in that. A lot of the country, a lot of our friends, a lot of people we know are all kind of slightly in mourning and kind of shock and grief and kind of a bit, you know, exasperated with the world with that news the rest of the week.

And of course we were in that moment of joy and celebration and kind of,  you know, everything, everyone was well, the baby was here, we could come home, we were all doing fine, you know, all that stuff. Yeah.  We kind of held on to it for a few days because it felt a little bit Yeah, and we never tell people like, well the rest of the world the first few days to our home anyway. 

Great, anyway, so we've got through that bit, so we're home, a few, whatever. I did want to note, we didn't tell the family the name or send a picture, but Elliot did send a thing to everybody being like, the baby's arrived safe and M as well, and Yeah, to be clear, it wasn't radio silence. No.  And we did send some pictures, it just didn't show the baby's  I  know, we're talking about you, we are. 

Elliot's just dancing around the room now. Just so people know what's happening. I'm sure he'll cut this bit out. Just so you know.  I can keep talking if you want. I'm trying to think, what bit did you want to cover next? Do you want to talk about, I've got noted down here, Lily immediately flipped and became very attached to me.

Oh yes, when you first got home. Yeah. Which was actually quite nice. You can also talk about, um, our tablet. Oh yes. So yeah, when we first, I think when we first got in? Must have been the first day back. She was big, big Baba favourite. Which was actually really nice to see. Um, I know people think, oh, you'd get jealous, but I, I've been the favourite for a long time.

And If people remember we had the phase beforehand where Lily was a bit mean to Baba and be like, you're not my friend Mummy's my best friend. So it's actually really nice that she was really wanted you to do stuff with her and you were nicely connected And it was literally a complete flip in that she said to you.

Yeah, you're not my friend. Yeah, I don't like you anymore Which was much which once again never nice there, but it was much nicer that he actually had a really nice Um, and it's good now because now she just goes, you're both my best friends. So it's really progressed. It did switch back within like 24 hours.

It did, yeah. But still, it was good because you're no My moment didn't last very long.  But you're no longer like the enemy. Now she always goes, you're both my best friends. So it's a lot nicer now. On a previous episode, we talked a lot about how we were going to get Lily a gift from the baby. Oh, and we did, yes.

So Lola, Lily, and Lily.  Lola bought Lily a tablet. You know, it's a bit like Father Christmas, isn't it? It is. We bought Lily a tablet and it was from Lola. It was from Lola. Again, our attempt to reduce jealousy and not let her feel left out. And also, our hope was that this would be a great distraction in the first days, the first week.

You know, we don't have a lot of  energy to be running all over with her. Hopefully, you know, it's not great parenting, but maybe she'll sit on her tablet.  I can't, we can't say it's fully worked. I think it's been, it's been, Mostly a failure. Yes. She's played on it. So our big problem here is, it turns out we're like, we're too creative as parents.

We're too modern. We're not very big on screen time. We do a lot of imaginative play. A lot of Montessori stuff. So Lily wasn't bothered by the tablet. No. She was like, why would I want to play on the tablet? I want to play with you guys. Yeah. She'd be like, but,  she's so cute at the minute. She goes, You want to play with me?

And I'm always like, how can I say no?  And so I'm normally go, yes, I do want to play with you. Can I just do this one thing first and then I can play with you? Um, but it's been nice. So like when often when one of us is looking after the baby, the other person then gives Lily just one on one play time.

Yeah. And she's really good at the minute. Do you want to help me? So she's quite happy to like help clean bottles or help change the baby. And as long as she's involved, she's quite happy.  Right, we're back. Nappy's changed, baby's down again. Hopefully.  Sorry, it's a bit choppy, isn't it? Stop, start on the episode today.

It's turned into a very literal, uh, podcasting thing now. Don't wake the baby. Don't wake the baby, like literally. The baby's sleeping beside us, and we're like, we're whispering, going, I hope, I hope our voices don't wake the baby. Um, so we've actually been really lucky with how much Lily has taken to the baby as being her sister.

And very proudly telling everybody she's got a new baby sister. So it's actually been really nice. Yeah, yeah. Just keep going. Um, From the age of two ish,  she has  been asking for a baby, which I do think maybe has helped because she has had this constant wish for a baby. Whereas I guess for some children, if you never had the concept of wanting a sibling, it's maybe more of a shock and not like, oh, but I wanted one.

Whereas Lily's been like, I want a baby. We have had more screen time. We do watch more TV. Again, I think that's very normal. We just, you know,  Shall we talk about my, my biggest pet peeve which is okay initially and now I'm getting a bit frustrated. Yeah. So we did immediately relax some rules. Yeah.  Yeah, and this is what we expected.

A load of parents warned us that, um, you know, the older one likes to act a bit like the baby. Yeah. So almost immediately, Lily wanted a bottle and milk. Yeah. And so we gave her one of the big baby bottles and put, you know, actual milk in it, so she's been drinking a lot of that.  like the baby. I don't mind that because she'll grow out of it again.

It's not a problem. Initially, she just wants to be like the baby. Yeah. And I think if it makes her feel special when the baby's getting a ball and she gets a ball, that's fine. Yeah. The other one though,  is she has joined us in our bed. Which I do get because she's like, you three are all in the same room.

Yeah. Why would I be in a room by myself? Yeah, it's true. Which yeah, it's completely you know, initially, but the problem is  She's still there. Yeah. In almost two weeks. And she, she's, like most toddlers, she doesn't sleep just straight. No. She has to, she, for being the smallest person in the bed, she takes up most of the bed.

Definitely.  So, my plan is, currently. I mean, we should also say she's an oddball. Well, I don't know, like, maybe it's quite normal. As with toddlers, she likes to take stuff to bed. Oh, yeah. Um, but particularly when it comes to Lily, this takes the form of wearing shoes. Yeah. So she loves to wear shoes to bed.

Luckily, we've got her to stop wearing them, but now she has to hold her shoes in the bed, which I don't know if it's much better.  See, yeah, you know how toddlers often kick you when you're in bed? She's wearing shoes and kicking me. And not only shoes, she's wearing, like, these toddler high heels that we bought her as a kid.

Princess shoes. Um, which have gone down a hit. Yes, this is because she found my heels and was wearing them around the house and it was getting a bit dangerous. So we've now got her, like, these little princess shoes you could get a pack of three. So I now get kicked with, like, high heels in bed. Yeah. Not only that, my space in the bed has drastically reduced.

Yes. So, Emma over there has a fairly decent amount of space, just, you know, you're recovering and need your pillows and things. Lily's then, basically, from the middle across onto my side of the bed. And I have about two inches, maybe, a few centimetres. He might put a picture on at one point. He took a picture of like, he turned round after getting up to deal with the baby, and he'd given literally, like, a slither left on the bed for him.

I'm not exaggerating, like, in the time, I really don't know how I fit in it. Heh. I would go sleep in the spare bed but Lily wants us all to sleep together and so she'll come find me in the middle of the night and of course I need to be in the room during my shift but I try and move her across but she just moves back like she ends up on top of me. 

They've got a photo I haven't shown you yet where her legs are just over you at one point in the night and it really entertained me. The other frustrating thing is she doesn't like to be under the cover. No. She likes to sit on top of the cover. Which she's always been like that. She's a bit of a weirdo.

Sleeping between us which means. Yeah. Trying to get our, the cover on top of us. And it's cold. So I'm sat there, cold, uncomfortable,  awkward. So as much as we are getting a decent amount of sleep, I wouldn't say it's, for me, it's not pleasant sleep. My current plan is, because it's coming up to Christmas, I'm going to try and make her room very Christmassy.

So I've like ordered her like a little pink tree to put in her room with some lights. And then we've got some Christmas bedding. Like, in a week's time, my C section, I'm hoping then I could sit with her on her bed. Because her bed's a floor bed, so it's obviously quite hard to get down to. Um, but because my recovery is going well, I'm hoping in a week's time I can sit and do stories with her in her bed to help her get back into the routine of being in the bed.

Let's talk about that for a bit, because this episode is called Postpartum. It is. How are you doing? Let's talk about your recovery. I'm doing fantastically well so far. Yeah. Um, everybody seems very surprised. I recovered very quickly last time, but this time has been so much quicker. We were really prepared because you did, you did so well last time.

I'm trying to think, I suppose there'll be some people who've been through this experience and know, and some people who won't have. Yeah. I mean, it's, it is major surgery you go through and they do say, is it like,  Kind of six weeks  to three months. It six weeks to three months. Yeah. It's kind of the, uh, six weeks is until you kind of are meant to feel relatively normal.

Yeah. And three months is until you can start lifting heavier weights and stuff again. Yeah. Um, and last time with Lily. Yeah. I would say about two weeks. You were doing very well. Yeah. You were back to a very.  you know,  active kind of, you know, of course there's things you can't lift heavy weights and things, but you know, in, in terms of outward looking.

Yeah. Most people wouldn't have known I'd had a c section. Exactly, and how I'm feeling and everything. Yeah. This time, you know, going into it, I was very, you know, We were both very prepared for it to take longer. I was very worried about your mental health state in terms of if it did take three months.

Yeah. We, you know, we'd have to deal with that. And because you recovered so quickly last time. And a lot of people had said, oh, well, the second time you have it, it's a much slower recovery. Um, Which we haven't, I mean it's only days, but we haven't found that to be true. Well, this is what's been incredible.

You've recovered even quicker. I'm in much less pain than last time, I would say. Um, I have a lot of movement. Obviously, I'm not being stupid, but I can actually do most things pretty well. Um, and you, you would put a lot of this down to the fact that  You've not been through labor. Exactly. I think last time, because I was basically in labor for 30 hours, then had an emergency C section, my recovery, I'm not like, it's only a week's different, but I was in a lot more pain at this point and I was given a lot better drugs this time, so I was given good drugs to take home with me.

So actually stops the pain and I now haven't had to take any painkillers for like half of the week. But I think in the early days that would just really helped you get enough sleep and stuff is just having the proper drugs probably. I was really impressed because by like, you know, two or three days in you're already doing things, you know, like last time I had to help you on and off the bed.

Yeah, or off the toilet. Yeah, all that sort of stuff. Like, yeah, just. And I can do showers by myself. Like. You, you would so, so independent so quickly. Mm. I mean, from our point of view, that's so helpful. It is, yeah. Because it meant so quickly, it did, it became possible for, Well, to share more tasks really, yeah.

Yeah, I mean it was funny. There's, you know, scenarios where you would go down on the floor To sit with Lily. To sit with Lily. And then I, I, I couldn't get up again. You couldn't really get up again because So I'd walk, um, like on hands and I was gonna say crawl. Crawl, yes. I was gonna say walk on my hands and knees, but that's crawling. 

I'd crawl to the stairs and then, um, If people don't know basically climb up the stairs. So kind of writing myself using the stairs. Yeah. Um, and Lily would go, why are you walking like a turtle again, mummy? And I'd be like, oh, it's just how mummy has to, if she gets on the floor, this is how mummy has to go.

So she can get off the floor. Yeah.  I think it helps. I can remember how I did things. Whereas now I can get up and down fine. And my only thing is I can't sleep on my side, which is very annoying. So I just have to sleep flat because, but I, once again, I think I remember this last time that the last pains to go for me with the pains on the sides, because I think that's where it stretches a bit.

So I can't sleep on my side at all. Um, and it's only by really like, like yesterday, I was reaching for some wipes that were very far away and that twinged  a bit. So it's just being sensible, really, which I know because I feel good. I keep kind of forgetting. I need to be careful. So,  Yeah, recovery's going very well.

But it's good to be active. It is, and I think that's the main thing. Shall we return to a baby conversation then about how kind of that stuff's going? Um, thinking about the differences and, you know, what it's been like this time around compared to last time around. One of the big changes is that Lily was a summer baby. 

And Lola is, you know, a November baby. Yeah, a winter baby. And just trying to get our heads around some of that has been, you know, a different learning curve. There's always new stuff to learn. Yeah. Like every baby's different and  All that, but yeah, we, we are not used to working out what the right temperature is.

Yeah. How many clothes to wear? Because with Lily it was just, it was a heat wave, so we basically had to a vest. Was it? Yeah. Like you couldn't sometimes just a nappy come just a nappy 'cause it was so hot. Whereas this hand around for like, is that enough layers or should we warm enough? We need a hat when we go out.

That's very confusing to me because like we've got the heating on in the house. Yeah. So the house is, you know, quite walk quite a warm temperature. So I'm like, but. It's still winter, so does she need extra layers? Or  surely it should just be the same as if it's summer? Yeah, I just do by feel. Yeah, um, I'm no good at that because I'm, I'm always cold.

He's always cold, he's no useful. The baby always feels hot to me. Yes, whereas I'm quite a warm being, so I think if she feels warm to me, then she must be warm. Yeah, and it means, you know, Different things, you know, are harder or, you know, just more challenging than last time. Mm-Hmm. , you know, I'm quite happy changing nappies and stuff like that.

Yeah. And last time it wasn't a big deal. This time changing nappies is like one of the, not, it's not difficult, but it's like, it's not a pleasant experience. 'cause Lola hates getting undressed because it's cold. It's cold. Yeah. And so, it's gone from, it's being one of those, those kind of things you need to do.

It's like, if you have a choice between which activity you want to do, do you want to feed her, sterilise bottles, do you want to change her nappy? It's like, I don't want to change her nappy. Yeah. Because she's gonna scream. Yeah. Because she doesn't like being naked. Understandably. Yeah, because it's cold.

But like, this isn't like, Lily was quite happy being naked and having her nappy changed, because it was warm. Yeah, true. You know, just these little things.  And I mean, sleep wise, we've kind of touched on it a little bit, but we're doing okay. Mostly because we've enacted some of the stuff we learned last time.

Which was like, split the shift. Yeah. I mean, again, this is really only possible because we are bottle feeding. Yeah. And we will do a whole episode on feeding soon. Yeah. But, um. Yeah, we've actually had some success breastfeeding, which has been very novel for me. Yeah. Um, but we are.  We only do like two big breastfeeds a day, maybe three, and then bottle feed the rest of the time.

And it's a mix of reasons, you know. Yeah. Your, your milk didn't come in. Till like day three. You still don't produce enough milk to feed it. So we would always have had to have bottle fed. Yeah, we'd always have to supplement. At least till my, like, breast milk would go up, but also I wouldn't want to do nights by myself as I've said.

Yeah, we've been open before that actually, for us, part of it is an active choice, that even if you could fully breastfeed. Yeah. We would still, I think, certainly still be considering doing some bottle feeding. Yeah. Because it means, you know, as we've said, We are actually doing pretty well. Yeah. It's amazing how much more you can cope with.

Mmm. When you've had some sleep. And because we're bottle feeding, it means we can split the night shift. Yeah. And so even though she's up every couple of hours, and you know, you're up with her often a lot of that time, or most of that time, or she won't go down, or you know, you can be up. Basically your entire shift.

Yeah. But it's not too bad. Because we split the night around 1, 2am. Yeah. It means that one of you gets to sleep up until that point and one of you gets to sleep after that point till morning. So we're both getting 4 or 5 hours sleep per night.  Amazing really. Like for a newborn. Yeah. I think that's why people keep saying we look really well.

I was like, well we, we do. We're not getting the sleep we did have, but we're getting a good amount of sleep, which makes it just so much easier to deal with things. And it's probably what's helping your recovery. Yeah, true. You know, I feel like sleep is just a factor that influences so much. Yeah. Like mental health and coping with all sorts of things.

And even coping when Lily does have a tantrum. Yeah. You're not going to be as annoyed and angry because you have had some sleep, so you have enough about you to have some coping mechanisms left. Nah, I'm almost calmer. and more patient with Lily in her tantrums now than I was in my stressed state during pregnancy.

I think also though she had more tantrums then, so you'd probably wasted your patience on like the first two tantrums of whatever day it was. True, true, true. Whereas now when she's having one, it's a lot less. And I know, you know, it is early days. We said, when we talked about this period last time, we said In actual fact, the first couple of weeks, they have their challenges, but Yeah, and we definitely had less sleep last time.

Yeah, yeah. But, you know, we've never found that to be the most difficult. No. We know, like, the most challenging times, I think, are ahead of us. Especially, I think, once teasing hits, that will be challenging. And, you know, I'm still Because then your sleep schedule goes out the window. Yeah, I'm still currently on paternity leave, so Yeah.

Once I go back to work, that's gonna add a bit of a challenge in terms of, you know, my tiredness and all sorts of things. Although I am excited to go back to work, but, you know, I enjoy what I do, but, you know, it is different. I have been managing while Elliot cleans to like, look after both of them by myself.

So I think that'll be the real challenge for me is when he is back at work. Um, and I'll be like, right, I've got two of them and I need to keep one of them entertained. But also we've, we've been out twice or three times and that's like, compared to last time. That's quite a lot.  I think we did say with a toddler, we didn't know what would happen.

We did anticipate we may be going out more than once.  And it turns out we are going out more. It turns out we are, yep. Because Lily wants to show the baby off, so it means we go to ballet, she wants the baby to come to ballet.  If we go out for like, once again we've been out. Mornings are a challenge, you know.

Yeah, mornings. We have to go out  a lot of days because we have to drop Lily off at nursery. Yeah. So we do have to leave the house. Um, that is a challenge. And getting everyone to leave on time. We've kind of forgotten how long the baby takes to get ready. Yes. We're used to a toddler now where it can be pretty quick.

Yeah. You to convince her to get out the door. Yeah, but she's quite excited to go to nursery. So you can suddenly go from And there's not a lot for us to do. Like, you just grab a bag and off you go. But with a baby, I've forgotten, like Have they fed? Yeah. nappy? Is the bag ready in case they're sick in the car or something?

Have we got change? Yeah, just all that. This morning worked slightly easier because Elliot just took Lily and I, because I was in the middle of breastfeeding and I was like, well, I can't. So you just took her. So it was actually a bit more leisurely of a morning. Um, but I don't want to do it all the time because I know normally while I was pregnant, I was the primary person who dropped her off.

So I don't want her to suddenly go, Oh, well, mommy doesn't drop me off anymore because the baby's here. So we will have to just get better at getting out the door. Um,  That kind of reminds me, there's a few stories to tell of kind of fails and things, um, but before we get onto that, we'll come to some amusing stories that have gone rather wrong for us in, in this, uh, week and a bit.

But, um, you know, we've both listened back to our episode that we did, our podcast episode on newborns, where we talked about our experience with the first week with Lily.  It's funny because we didn't discuss this either. I just heard him listening to it and I was like, yes, I've re listened to it too. I thought it'd be good for this episode to Well, mine was also just to like, get my head in the mindset of what it's going to be like again.

Oh, right. Did you listen to it before? Yeah. Oh, I only listened to it a few days. Well, I think it was while I was in hospital I listened to it, um, when the little baby was sleeping, being like, can I remember what it was like? Yeah. What did we do? So there's a few things we talked about on that episode, which I thought we should bring up.

And, um You know, compare the differences. We've not discussed them yet. Um, so just a very, um, simple one, but like this time you've not got any injections to do? No. For like blood So it Is it blood thinners? Blood thinners, yeah. So it turns out when you have an elective C section, and I think because I was moving about very quickly, um, they said there was no need for me to do blood thinners this time, which I was so pleased about because I literally the lady I had a physiotherapist Come over and talk to me about C sections.

And she went, you've had one before? And I was saying, yes. And I was explaining how I knew how to get out of bed. And then I was going, oh, and I know how to do the injections. And she looked at her list and went, you don't have to do injections. And I felt like, and I was like, I don't even know what to say.

I'm so pleased. Yes. That I don't have to do them. Thank goodness. Because I was going, oh, I know you hold the skin like this and put it, and I always put it in my leg. And she's like, you don't have to do them. Because they are nasty. They are. And you cook very well, but they're still not very nice. And it's still mentally another thing.

A you have to do and B you have to like really psych yourself up for. And of course, another big thing is last time round you had your rash. Oh I did, my terrible sun allergy. Just to catch people up if you haven't listened to those episodes, you had it, you developed during late pregnancy first time round.

Yeah. Uh, a terrible allergy to sunlight. Um, and it's called PMLE. If people also have an allergy to sunlight, there's a group on Facebook you can join. Um, and a lot of people on there, it is triggered by hormonal changes. It's mostly women. So yeah, it's, it's a, when you say a rash, you can't imagine how horrible of a rash it is.

Yeah, complete, completely all over your body. All over your body. And it's, and it's not like, oh, it's some spots. It's like, oh, it's kind of like being a leper. I was going to say, it's like leprosy. Yeah. Um, so people would look at you like, you know, like you're some diseased creature.  Um, and it was so itchy and painful.

Yeah. That was horrendous. So.  I was really glad we were having a winter birth. We've not had that this time. Yeah, because there's not been any sunlight around. That's another thing off our list that  just has made things a bit more straightforward. A bit easier, yeah. Better to cope with, just, yeah, just, oh. I think we, I think you forget how hard it was last time.

Yeah, and like I said, I think we're just a bit calmer, whereas with Lily, it was hot, so she got a rash, she'd be like, Oh, she's got a rash, what do we do? And now I'm like, you know, it's normal. Babies get rashes. We're more relaxed. Yeah. Yeah. Less stressed. Um, okay, so other things we talked about in that past episode was, um, gifts and food.

Yes. Um, so an interesting one, yeah, we talked a little bit in the episode you mentioned that you really enjoyed having like loads of flowers and things. It's not something we're normally into, we don't like people sending us flowers, but in that instance. Yeah. You quite like I quite like it because it makes the house a bit cheerier when you're kind of stuck in This time not as many flowers.

No, but lily was so impressed with the flowers that didn't arrive that did arrive rather. Yeah Um, so we get a nice thing every morning. I would say, you know to clarify Thank you very much for not sending us flowers because now we have a toddler like they are a real hazard They are. But she loves them. I know.

Every time she goes near that windowsill, where those flowers are. Yes, it's true. My mind's going, please don't knock them off there. That's true. Like, we don't have many places that are high up we can put them. Yes, good point. Yes. So, you know, people have done  pretty well really in terms of giving us more practical things.

And like vouchers for food. Yeah. Which is what we actually give to other people, um, is, is a really good gift. Um, the other thing was like cards and things, particularly listeners of this and some of our friends and stuff have done really well. Really well. Um, in terms of Like sending a card just to Lily to say congratulations for being a big sister.

It's not something that occurred to me until you mentioned it, that we were receiving a number of cards that kind of just said, To Emma, Elliot and Lola. Or, you know, just just completely omitted Lily from the card, or yeah, and it was like, I know Lily can't really read yet. So I would just say she's on it.

But she can recognise her name Yes. She can recognise letters and patterns. Yeah. And so it's just that mental thing of being like Lily is part of the family. Like Yeah. You know. But so our friends, um, Luke and I did a great job. They sent a card just to Lily. Yeah. Um, that said like, crunch would existed and I was like, that's so nice because that's so nice for her to have a letter and it just be hers.

Yeah. At this stage. Really good. So that was lovely. Yeah. Um, food as well. Mm-Hmm. , we talked a lot in our episode last time about. Kind of food and eating habits during the first week pretty similar really in the sense We haven't batch cooked or prepared. No, we have done better though at having We at least tried to have one normal meal a day.

Yes Um, it's not all snacking on chocolate and stuff just because we have lily with us. Um, and actually lily's been doing really well Yeah, um, you know, she's still a toddler. She's still She's not like she's eaten a load of vegetables. No, but she was getting ready. Once again, I don't know if it was an anxiety thing with the pregnancy.

Um, but she started having like bigger breakfast again of great Greek yogurt and her like trees, dry strawberries on them. She's been eating like baked beans and things. Yeah. She's done a lot better than she was doing. Yeah. I've had cereal, you know, things that could actually be counted as Kind of like a meal.

Yeah, not just Greek yogurt. I'm like relatively healthy for a lily Um, not just snacking on so that's be nice that she's actually been eating properly  And like we do have quite a fair bit of chocolate. Oh, yeah the house and like people have sent stuff to us Generally, we've we've We only bought healthy things for ourselves.

Because we knew people would bring us the unhealthy stuff. the unhealthy stuff. So the main challenge really is because of course, now you're not pregnant, you're gluten free. Yeah. And also I'm just trying to eat a bit healthier. Yeah, but you know like, you can't really find, you know, like gluten free ready meals very easily.

Oh, microwave meals. Microwave meals, anything like that. So anything that's simple  is quite challenging. Yeah, like I've bought, I've bought recently just done at asdrod and got loads of fillings for jacket potatoes because they're not too hard to make and i feel like it's a good lunchtime thing yeah um because in in normal times you know like when we're doing okay, or when we don't have children, like, with gluten free.

Nearly all of it is much easier to do ourselves. It is, yeah. To make from scratch. Make your own pastry, it's a lot easier. Yeah, all sorts of things. Or you just, you make meals that don't Involve it in the first place, yeah. But like, you know, cooking from scratch is such a big ordeal.  In this first couple of weeks.

It is, yeah. Yeah. But again, because we've been doing okay, like, we've gone out a few times, we've had some meals out. Yeah, we have. So, which has meant, you know, we actually  You know, it's other people cooking the food for us. So that's easier. And you've been eating well without the fuss. You can come home and just have snacky tea or whatever. 

Like, we had a takeaway one night. So, you know, we've been muddling through. Right, okay, so the, yeah, this topic. Interesting one. We talked a bit about guests. Uh, yes. On our previous episode and we, like, We had a bit of a split opinion on this. So, I came down fairly heavily like, I really don't like guests in the first week.

And we kind of said, maybe this is like an introvert, extrovert thing. Yeah. You know, a lot of people generally do, you don't have guests straight away. Yeah, yeah. You have a bit of time to yourselves. But like, you quite like people visiting, at least to me. In our episode, you said, I do. Well, I think especially at the time, cause it was COVID, I found it quite depressing being in the house all the time.

Um, so I quite liked having guests. I think this time around, it's not been as bad because we can go out and we've actually been out a fair bit, so it's not been quite as claustrophobic, but yeah, I'm more pro guests I'd say than you are, but I'm also very, like when looking online, most people have two weeks.

Of no guests, or in a apparently, according to a lot of Americans, they have a month without guests. Um,  which I think is quite healthy boundaries to set in place. Especially because I just, at that point, when we were talking about people coming, I didn't know how my recovery would be. I might still be stumbling around the house, not have had a shower.

Yeah. Like, in which case, why would I want to see people? Yeah. And we, again, we discussed this a bit on the other episode about newborns first time that it's kind of a balancing act, like, the support versus the kind of infringement. So, you know, like if you've got support, if you've got people that want to come and help, if you've got people that want to come and do the washing up and come and do stuff, then it's fine.

And that can be really helpful. And to come and let them do that. Um, but equally on the flip side, You know, we don't need a lot of people to come visit and just hold the baby, hold the baby, to give us a lot of illnesses, you know, all that sort of stuff, and like you say, just having some boundaries around that, which is a challenge, um, so far we've just had the grandparents visit.

Um, so we're doing like slow but steady visitors, basically. I mean, if any of you know us, you know what it's like with our families who are very enthusiastic. Very enthusiastic. So it has been difficult to put them off for a week. Yeah. Um, they're both very eager to come, very promptly. Yeah. Um, very, they,  you know, they're just, They're keen and they struggle with some of our boundaries.

I think we mentioned when we were talking about preparing about saying, you know, we weren't going to tell the parents the name or  send a photo until Lily, and we said that might be a challenge with your family, with all the family, because they're not used to it, yeah. As we expected, that was a challenge.

It was a kind of, we may have just had a baby, but we did get some pushback. Yeah. You know, your mum was quizzing Lily about what the name was. Yes, which is so lucky we had told Lily the name. Yeah, yeah. My mum was messaging your mum to say, do you know the name yet? Yes. When are you visiting? Yeah. What's going on? 

Checking that it's the same status. Checking that they have the same rules. Yeah. Yeah. Both wanted to visit. pretty quickly. Yeah. My parents wanted to visit like on day three. Yeah. Like almost 48 hours afterwards. So we just would have come home from hospital. I was just like, uh, nope. Yeah, that can't happen.

Your parents wanted to visit like three or four days after that. Yeah. And we, you know, push them back to a week. Yeah. But we've managed.  People know my sister in France did a sterling job on the family chat because they all had like a little bet going of who could guess the name. Oh, yeah, yeah. Um, and Becky was really good at saying, Oh, and then we'll wait till the baby's born.

And Lily's seen them like just to re confirm in everybody's head what was happening. Yeah. And then once Lily's bet the baby, they'll tell us the name, we'll get a picture. And I remember like talking to her later being like, good, if everybody else, like all the other sisters, they'll  I call them squaddies, the My Sisters Who God Reblooms.

If everybody else could reconfirm with everybody that this is what is happening. Just so nobody can complain that they didn't know that they wouldn't be getting a photo and knowing their name until that point. So I was very grateful that all the sisters kind of chimed in to make it, this is what's happening and this is what, like, you should all expect.

No one guessed the name though? There were some close calls. Close calls. Becky's little boy. And um, my dad guessed a middle name. Anyway, I promised you we'd get on to some failed stories, so here we are, like, half an hour later or whatever this is. I'm probably going to have to edit this down terribly.

Probably going to be like two hours long. Yeah, I'm sorry. I told you it would be a rambly episode. It's very rambly. So, we've had some fun stories happening just, you know, as things have gone along. First midwife visit, uh, I think it was on day three? Yes. Your community midwife? Yes. Had come round to check how everything was going, to weigh the baby.

Yeah. And we were doing okay, but like, everything was a bit chaotic on a morning. Yeah.  Like, you'd been up on the toilet. Yeah. And Lily had been on the toilet and I was trying to get Lily and Lola. So basically, while I was on the toilet, she arrived. Yeah. Um. So it was just all a bit of chaos when she arrived, as you'd expect.

But Lily had just been on the toilet and I only realised, you know, the potty that was in the living room. I didn't realise until after the community midwife left. Yeah. That the whole time, Lily's wee and massive poo had just been sucked in the living room, in the potty, there, on display. I've no idea if she noticed it.

No. Yeah. Oh, she's too polite to say anything. But I was just, I was then a bit like, head in hands, embarrassed, like, Oh, what must she have thought, she's coming. But she's lovely. Yeah. So there you go, that was a bit of a fail, like, Oh, they came and visited and there was just a big poo in the living room.

Well, it was only after she left it, Elliot went, Oh no. Oh no, what is it? He's like, there's a really big poo in weiner's potty. I was like, Oh. Yeah. And then two days later, um, on the Monday, it was, Oh no.  Two days later, on the Monday, it was Lily's first day back at nursery. It was. Um, which she did very well for.

She was excited. She had a week off. But typical parents like us, it's, you know, now cold November and we forgot to send her in a coat. Forgot her coat. So it was funny, in all the pictures of the nursery, she was wearing this really odd coat that clearly the nursery had just found and put on her, which was really kind of them.

Um, and I remember, they, they're so used to us being on it, when we were picking her up, they were like, I'm so sorry, we think we've lost her coat. Because they couldn't, like, for them, because we're normally so on it, they couldn't comprehend we wouldn't have sent her in a coat. And I was like, no, it's our fault, you know, we have a newborn, we just completely, completely forgot the coat.

It was left in the corridor. Yeah. Um. There we go. Also, just like, a lot of what we relied on last time was that Lily took very well to a dummy. Yeah. That has not gone well this time. No. I don't know whether it's because she's breastfeeding more than Lily did, but Lola does not like a dummy. Does not like a dummy.

Um, and I now sympathise a lot with people out there, when we said we were coping okay with sleep, and we always used to say, oh well a dummy's been hard. A dummy works really well. And they've, we've got friends who say, well they just won't take it. Yeah, and some of my sisters, like, uh, my sister Kirsty and Becky would both go, oh no, yeah, they just wouldn't take a dummy.

And in my head I was like, what do you mean they wouldn't take a dummy? Like, you're just forcing on them. And I was like, oh no, I see. When they really don't want it.  They don't want it. But I'm not giving up! He's not giving up, he's still trying. I'm a stubborn, persistent man. I don't give up easily. Nope.

And I'm still going. She spits it out every few seconds, but I keep putting it back in and It would just make life a lot easier. It would. But I think she's out, well, I'd prefer a boob. Yeah, yeah. She has her options.  It's early days. It is. Have we done the thing again where we have a bottle of muslin up with us?

Probably.  Which Elliot has now been calling it Oh, he's done an Emma, because I always forget to like take the Muslim with me. It's true, I have been following suit in this trend, but Emma started the trend. Because I argued, argued the point that it should be called also an Elliot, because recently it's been about 50 percent of the time he's also forgot to bring it with us.

Shall we finally touch on then, uh, on that note? About, you know, we did a whole episode about our relationship. Um, anything we want to air? How's it going? Like, I think it's going pretty well. Any arguments? We've had a little tiff in the car. Yeah. Um, but other than that, I'd say we've done, we haven't been fighting about who's walking louder up the stairs.

No, no. We haven't got any complaints. No, not really air on public. No, you've been doing very well. You've been helping me get my sleep. Oh, that's true. You gave me a bit of a line this morning. I don't think I can complain really. I've done a good job recording this episode on on this day. Yeah. Yeah.  And I know people say isn't a treat having a shower, but it feels like a treat having a shower.

When yesterday, I was like, can I go have a shower if you look after both the kids?  Um, especially when there's two of them. And it was really nice being able to have like a leisurely shower. I didn't hear screaming or like, you know, it was calm. I didn't have to rush. I would say.  You know, this wasn't like amazing parenting, we were sat watching the TV.

Yeah, but I'm just saying, I think often people, they have a shower and the kids are running riot looking for mum. Whereas you did a good job of containing the children. So I didn't feel like I was like, in the middle of washing my hair and going, Oh my god, I'm gonna have to get down there quickly. I mean, that is something that's, you know, We harp on about it, but it's more unique to us that, you know, we are pretty equal and more involved, and in that way, I think Lily  and Lola are both, at the moment, very happy in my company, and, you know, she is clingy with you, but, you know, we do manage to share, so.

We do, yeah. It does give you a bit of space now and again. Yes, partially. Do things that are, once again, it's not a treat, but having a leisurely shower is a bit of a treat, I'd say. This was meant to be airing grievances, all you've done is, uh,  Well, you've been very good so far.  We'll see, like, in a couple of weeks, when you've done something that I've found annoying, then I'll bring it up.

But at the minute, he's been very good. Can't say I've had any complaints. Uh, I have a very minor complaint. Oh, see, this is why you wanted me to say something better, Ben.  Go on, then. What's the minor complaint? There's been a couple of mornings where I've woken up and the, the nappy bags with the nappies have been sat next to, in the room, the nappy bin.

It's just there. Yeah, I know, I know. Just open the bin, put the nappy bag in the bin. I worry that doing that will wake her up sometimes when I've just got her settled. People don't know,  with me, she will not settle in the cot.  Oh, also a funny thing. I don't know if it should go in here. Lily calls the cot a pot. 

So she's kind of saying let's put the baby in the pot. Put the baby in the pot. And I'm always like, cot, because I worry at nursery she's going to tell them we're putting the baby in the pot.  So I'd be going, C  C Cot. And she goes, Yes, the pot.  So it sounds like we're constantly going to cook the baby. In terms of actual achievement, we, we have, um, incredibly, again, this is not to show off.

This is as much a surprise to us as anyone. We have already started doing some very minor potty training. We have. We kind of said in some of our episodes leading up to this, um, that it's something we intended to do. So if you haven't listened to a past episode we did on Elimination Communication.  Um, basically, last time round with Lily, we did early potty training from about six months.

Um, and you can do it from birth, and you know, by a year, Lily was pretty much fully potty trained. So a lot earlier than most, and it's just something that we had success with, and we said we'd do it again. We envisaged we would start about one or two months, maybe three months, just a bit earlier than Lily, once we felt we were ready.

How's that turned out? Lola is like a carbon copy of Lily that you take her nappy off and she immediately wheezes and poos. Yeah.  Which did amuse my dad when he was here because he was like, Oh, what, why you, why have you got the potty? And I said, Oh, every time you open up, she was in poos. And I think at the time he was like, does she?

And then Lily was like, Oh, let's go change the baby's nappy, granddad. And he was changing it and big, huge poo and wee. And he was like, Oh, I see, I see your problem. And I was like, yeah,  so we might as well put her on the potty. Um, so we've had one successful wee in the potty so far. Yeah, yeah. Which is pretty good.

Yeah. Um, my thing is Elliot does have to do it because obviously I can't sit on the floor and put a, on me that, basically the positioning is a bit difficult for me right now. Yeah. There you go, we'll update you on that, on how that goes in future episodes. Right, anyway, this has been a long conversation, we should probably wrap things up and say goodbye.

Um, thank you for listening. If you're watching on YouTube, do like the video, subscribe, leave a comment, let us know, uh, how, you know, whatever, something.  I normally put a little question down there, so go and answer that. Um, if you're listening on a podcasting platform, please do, um, you know, follow, subscribe on whatever platform you're on.

I think you can also comment, can't you, on Spotify? Some, yeah, but not on everything. Ah, right. Yes. Yeah. I see. I only use Spotify, so that's the one I think of. Yeah, yeah. Leave us a review, uh, you know, five stars, please. Yeah. That would be perfect. I need less stars and it's not acceptable. Yeah, you'll be rejected from the community. 

Exiled, we'll never speak to you again. Yeah, not good enough. Check back in with us next time to hear more of the story and accompany us on this journey. Or if you're new here, go and check out all our old episodes. We've got a big back catalogue and follow some of our story to how we got to here. This is a conversation and this has been our side of the story.

Yeah. We'd love to hear yours. All right, then we should, we should probably go now then, should we? Yes, wrap up. Don't wait the baby.  Sleep well. God bless. We better sort this baby out then. We better. She's finally asleep. Typical.